47 Fun Facts About King Kong

In the original 1933 film, Kong makes his last stand on top of which New York skyscraper?

The Empire State Building. Kong was scaled up by a third for the climb, because the filmmakers feared that at his jungle size he would look like a bug on it.

Which actress played Ann Darrow, the 'golden woman' offered to Kong, in the 1933 film?

Fay Wray. She spent 22 hours straight on a fake tree limb, reacting to the already filmed fight between Kong and a dinosaur projected beside her.

What is Carl Denham's famous last line in the 1933 King Kong?

Denham's closing line, 'It was Beauty killed the Beast.', answers a policeman who credits the airplanes and caps the beauty-and-the-beast theme the film was built around.

The 1933 King Kong was directed and produced by Ernest B. Schoedsack and which other filmmaker?

Merian C. Cooper. He told the screenwriter to 'put us in it', and the showman Carl Denham is generally taken to be modelled on Cooper himself.

Which stop-motion pioneer, later Ray Harryhausen's mentor, animated Kong and the dinosaurs for the 1933 film?

Willis O'Brien. The studio had just scrapped his dinosaur film Creation, so its leftover models were put to work on Skull Island instead.

Roughly how tall was the stop-motion model that played the towering Kong in the 1933 film?

18 inches. For close-ups the crew also built a full-size head and a giant hand that could close around the lead actress and lift her off the floor.

King Kong opened in New York two days before which US president was first inaugurated?

Franklin D. Roosevelt. He closed the nation's banks within days, so the Hollywood premiere was delayed and ticket prices were cut, yet the film still gave its ailing studio a major boost.

An explorer's 1927 book about which animals helped inspire the monsters of King Kong's Skull Island?

Komodo dragons. After reading W. Douglas Burden's The Dragon Lizards of Komodo, the film's co-creator wrote that he set out to 'giantize' both a gorilla and Burden's dragons.

Who played Ann Darrow in the 2005 King Kong?

Naomi Watts. The actress who first played Ann was asked to make a cameo and flatly refused, then seemed to come round, but she died at 96 before shooting began.

Which thriller writer got story credit on King Kong despite dying soon after a rough draft?

Edgar Wallace. The studio wanted his best-selling name on the posters, though the film's co-creator complained that almost none of the script was his.

Kong's animator had already animated dinosaurs for a 1925 film of which Arthur Conan Doyle novel?

The Lost World. Its 1925 film also ends with a prehistoric beast shipped home and running loose in a modern city, eight years before Kong did the same.

Who composed the score for the 1933 King Kong?

Max Steiner. The studio wanted old music recycled to save money, but the film's co-director insisted on a new score and offered to pay for it out of his own pocket.

The 1933 King Kong premiered on 2 March 1933 at the RKO Roxy and which other New York venue?

Radio City Music Hall. Sharing the film with the RKO Roxy, it helped take $90,000 over the opening weekend, even as banks across the country were shutting their doors.

Which body's National Film Registry added King Kong in 1991?

Library of Congress. By then scenes that censors had cut, of Kong biting and trampling villagers, had turned up again after years thought lost.

In the 1933 sequel Son of Kong, what does Denham find on his return to Skull Island?

A giant albino gorilla, nicknamed Little Kong, befriends Denham and drowns holding him above the waves when an earthquake sinks the island.

King Kong's original leading lady was born on a ranch in which country?

Canada. Born near Cardston, Alberta, she was taken south as a small child, and Canada claimed her back after her death with a Walk of Fame star and a postage stamp.

A co-director of King Kong (1933) once founded a volunteer air squadron for which country's war against Soviet Russia?

Poland. His volunteer Kościuszko Squadron flew against the Bolsheviks until he was shot down in 1920; he escaped from a Soviet prison camp and received Poland's highest military decoration.

The animator of the 1933 King Kong received his only Oscar for the effects of which 1949 film?

Mighty Joe Young. The effects Oscar crowned the veteran's career, yet most of the ape's animation was done by his young assistant, Ray Harryhausen.

Which Japanese studio made King Kong vs. Godzilla in 1962?

Toho made King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) after producer John Beck brought it a treatment in which Kong fought a giant Frankenstein monster; the Japanese studio swapped in Godzilla.

In King Kong Escapes (1967), what is the name of the robot double that Kong fights in Tokyo?

Mechani-Kong. The robot and its maker, the mad scientist Dr. Who, were lifted from a Saturday-morning cartoon, The King Kong Show, on which the film was loosely based.

The 1976 King Kong remake swapped the original's climactic skyscraper for which then-new landmark?

The World Trade Center's twin towers, then only a few years old, host the remake's finale: Kong leaps from one tower to the other before helicopter gunships shoot him down.

Which producer, famous for lavish spectacles, made the 1976 King Kong?

Dino De Laurentiis. He snapped up the remake rights while Universal thought it had a deal, and the two sides sued each other before Universal dropped its rival film.

The 1976 King Kong remake launched the screen career of which actress, who played the castaway Dwan?

Jessica Lange. A fashion model with no acting credits, she got the part after the producer turned down Meryl Streep, and won a Golden Globe as best newcomer.

Which makeup artist wore the ape suit and played Kong for most of the 1976 film?

Rick Baker. He was hired only to build a back-up suit, but the full-size animatronic ape kept failing, so he ended up playing Kong for almost the whole film.

In the 1976 King Kong, who mounts the expedition that discovers the ape's island?

An oil company, Petrox, sends the expedition to an island hidden under a permanent cloud bank; when its oil proves useless, the executive ships Kong home as a publicity stunt instead.

Which future Best Actor winner played the hero of the 1976 King Kong?

Jeff Bridges. His character is a primate scientist who stows away on the expedition ship because he wants to warn the crew off the island.

Who directed the 2005 remake of King Kong?

Peter Jackson. He calls the 1933 film his favourite and tried to remake it as a boy, with a home-movie camera and his own stop-motion models.

Who provided the motion-capture performance for Kong in the 2005 film?

Andy Serkis. He studied real gorillas so that this Kong would move like a silverback, on its knuckles, and he also appears in the flesh as the ship's cook.

Which comedy star played the obsessed filmmaker Carl Denham in the 2005 King Kong?

Jack Black. In one of his few dramatic roles he based the performance on Orson Welles, the model the writers had in mind for their Denham.

The 2005 King Kong won three Academy Awards, for Best Visual Effects and which two others?

Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. The soundtrack was a race: the first composer left two months before release, and his replacement wrote and recorded nearly three hours of music in about five weeks.

The 2005 King Kong shot its Broadway theatre scenes in Auckland's Civic Theatre and an opera house in which city?

Wellington. The whole production was based in its director's home city, so the Opera House there became the Broadway theatre where Kong breaks his chains.

Kong: Skull Island (2017) is set just as US troops leave which country?

Vietnam. The film was pitched as Apocalypse Now with monsters, so it is set in 1973 and sends a helicopter squadron to the island.

The 2021 MonsterVerse film in which Godzilla and the ape finally fight staged its climactic city battle where?

Hong Kong's neon skyline hosts the final battle, where Godzilla and Kong fight and then team up against Mechagodzilla; Adam Wingard directed the 2021 film.

In Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024), Kong and Godzilla unite against a tyrannical ape called what?

The Skar King. He keeps the frost-breathing Titan Shimo enslaved with a crystal that causes her pain, and turns her ice on Kong the first time the two apes fight.

In 1982 Universal sued which company, claiming its new arcade ape was a blatant rip-off of King Kong?

Nintendo won: the court found Universal had itself argued in a 1975 case that the King Kong story was in the public domain, and Nintendo was awarded its legal fees.

How did the 2013 King Kong stage musical portray Kong?

A giant puppet. About six metres tall and weighing a tonne, it was worked by a team of onstage puppeteers when the show opened in Melbourne, five years before Broadway.

The 2005 King Kong video game was developed by the Montpellier studio of which publisher?

Ubisoft. The film's director asked for its designer Michel Ancel after admiring his earlier game Beyond Good & Evil, and the two made the tie-in together.

In the 1933 King Kong, what is the name of the ship Carl Denham charters to reach Skull Island?

The Venture. The film never shows Kong's crossing: scenes of the voyage to New York were cut from the script, and the story jumps from the island straight to Broadway.

How is Kong billed to the Broadway audience when Denham unveils him in New York?

Denham presents him as 'King Kong, The Eighth Wonder of the World' before a packed theatre; the press photographers' flashbulbs, which Kong takes as an attack on Ann, set him off.

How does Denham finally subdue Kong on Skull Island so he can be taken to New York?

With a gas bomb thrown on the beach, Denham knocks Kong out after the ape smashes through the great wall's gate and rampages through the village chasing Ann and Jack.

A 1984 LaserDisc of the 1933 King Kong was the first home release of any film to include what?

An audio commentary. Laserdiscs could carry more than one soundtrack, so film historian Ronald Haver talked viewers through the film on a second one, and the idea became a home-video staple.

Which dinosaur does Kong kill to save Ann in the 1933 King Kong?

A Tyrannosaurus in many accounts, an allosaurus in others; the fight was shot for the test reel that won the film its budget.

How was Kong's roar created for the 1933 film?

Lion and tiger roars played backward and slowed down gave Kong his roar; sound man Murray Spivack made the ape's softer grunts himself, through a megaphone.

Who was hired in July 1932 to rewrite the King Kong dialogue, despite never having written a screenplay?

Ruth Rose. The wife of co-director Ernest B. Schoedsack, she had travelled on his expeditions, and she threw out most of the previous writer's wordy dialogue.

Which word completes the title of the 1986 sequel to the 1976 remake, 'King Kong ___'?

King Kong Lives revives the ape with an artificial heart and gives him a mate, Lady Kong; it flopped, taking under $5 million in North America.

Which actor plays first mate Jack Driscoll in the 1933 King Kong?

Bruce Cabot. It was his first featured part, and the screenwriter modelled the gruff first mate on her own husband, the film's co-director.

In the 1933 King Kong, who play the airmen that shoot Kong down?

Its two directors. One of them, a wartime pilot, reportedly said 'We should kill the sonofabitch ourselves', and the 2005 remake's director repeated the cameo.